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When the World is Burning, Is Art a Waste of Time?

February 8, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

Last week, I watched this incredible TEDx talk by R. Alan Brooks, one of my colleagues at Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop. Wow! I hope this talk will be shown to teens everywhere. And adults, too, for that matter. As you’ll see in Alan’s talk, it’s never too late to follow your dreams. Especially in these intense times, when there’s so much at stake. (Spoiler alert: Brooks quit his day job in insurance to write comic books. Wait until you hear what happened next.) Here’s a short excerpt: “If art really has no power, if it’s really a silly waste of time, then why are dictators afraid of it? Why were Nazis burning books and paintings? Why was McCarthy so dedicated to blacklisting artists in the 1950’s? Why was Stalin’s government so focused on censoring artists in Russia?” I hope you find this talk as […]

How to Write with Ease

February 1, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

How to Bring Ease to Your Writing For the past few months, I’ve been thinking about the concept of parenting from an open and spacious place vs. a stressed and constricted one. After hearing Tara Mohr apply a similar concept to work, I decided to apply it to writing as well and it was a game changer! So I wrote this post to share this insight with you. I hope that this helps you shift the equation from stressed to spacious in your writing life. Write with Ease (instead of Stress) The other day, I listened to Tara Mohr talk about the possibility of bringing relaxation to everything we do. Since Mohr’s definition of “relaxation” was built around the difference between ease and spaciousness vs. stress and constriction, I’ve translated her use of “relaxation” to “ease” for the purpose of this post. Let’s […]

Literary Talisman + Rising Star Amanda Gorman

January 20, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

Earlier today, we fell in love with Amanda Gorman when she recited “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden and Vice President Harris’ inauguration. The first National Youth Poet Laureate in the US, Gorman is obviously deeply talented. At age 23, she’s also young. I was impressed by her leadership, passion and drive, and how she chose to use this opportunity to “to envision a way in which our country can still come together and can still heal.” (You can read the transcript of her inaugural poem here.) I wasn’t the only one who was moved. Social media immediately exploded with praise for Gorman and her rising star status. A couple of hours after I watched her recite that stunning poem, I chanced on an article I’d ripped out of the Oprah magazine in 2018 and saved for inspiration. The piece detailed Gorman’s challenges […]

Winter 2021 Offerings

December 21, 2020 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

If you’d like to work with me in the New Year, here are my winter 2021 offerings: Memoir Mastery: How to Write a Compelling Memoir In this comprehensive 9-week course, you’ll go from feeling alone, confused and overwhelmed to feeling excited and supported in the power of your story, clear in its scope, and confident in the craft and technique of creating a compelling memoir. With 6 online modules, 6 live coaching calls and a private community forum, you’ll get plenty of support and accountability as well as laser-focused coaching within a wonderfully supportive community. You’ll leave this course with a strong foundation for your memoir as well as a clear set of next steps. How the Course Works The keys to writing memoir are getting the right structure, accountability, encouragement and support. That’s why I’ve built the following pieces into this course: 2 […]

What Nourishes You

December 4, 2020 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

What’s nourishing you these days? And what’s nourishing your writing? We were speaking about this in our mastermind writing group the other day. A couple of writers shared that the go-to activities that used to nourish/support them during normal times haven’t been as helpful during the pandemic. Can you relate? Time alone, at home, used to be one of the ways my introverted self would recharge. But with four of us at home (and two kids schooling online), there’s not a lot of quiet around here. So I’ve gone outside as much as I’m able. Thank goodness I live in Colorado, where it’s sunny more often than not. Time in nature has been saving me. I’ve also let go of a lot of nonessential obligations. In the past six months, I’ve stepped out of three professional groups. They’re lovely groups, and one of […]

Memoir Mastery: How to Write a Compelling Memoir

November 13, 2020 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

How to Write a Memoir As a writer, teacher and long-time memoir fan, I’ve found that writing your story can be an incredibly rewarding journey. It can also be quite challenging. And trying to write a memoir without support can feel like wrestling an octopus. Where do you start? How do you narrow down your story, much less shape it? What do you do when the initial excitement wears off and you find yourself in the mucky middle? And how do you navigate the emotional terrain of delving into the heart of your life experiences? That’s why I created my Memoir Mastery course. For years, I grappled with the disconnect between writing a short piece and completing a full-length manuscript. Writing a book was much more complex, and my MFA program taught us how to write short pieces, not book-length manuscripts. Which meant […]